Digital Publishing Technology By William Lama Ph.D.
Digital Publishing Technology
By William Lama Ph.D.
“Put it before them briefly so they will read it, clearly so they will appreciate it, picturesquely so they will remember it and, above all, accurately so they will be guided by its light.” – Joseph Pulitzer
Faithful readers of Palos Verdes Pulse appreciate its digital nature. But digital magazines are a recent innovation. Indeed, publishing has come a very long way since Johannes Guttenberg mass produced the Bible in 1440 AD. In this article I will trace some of the major technological developments in publishing since that time, with emphasis on the digital technologies. I can also provide an insider’s perspective on some of the modern technologies.
Medieval Technology
Gutenberg combined mechanical movable type (invented by Korean Choe Yun-ui in 1250 AD) with the screw-threaded spiral mechanism from a wine or olive press to ratchet up printing to commercial speeds.
Recreated Gutenberg press at the International Printing Museum, Carson, California
Guttenberg also created the type pieces from a lead-based alloy which worked so well that it is still used today, and developed an oil-based ink suitable for high-quality printing with metal type.
“What the world is to-day, good and bad, it owes to Gutenberg.” Mark Twain
With incremental improvements, European printing presses by 1600 AD were capable of producing around 3,000 copies per day. Furthermore, they contributed greatly to revolutionary movements. In two years 300,000 copies of Luther's tracts were printed and distributed. The printing press also enabled communities of scientists to easily share their discoveries through widely disseminated scholarly journals, helping to bring on the scientific revolution.
In the 19th century, steam powered rotary presses replaced the hand-operated Gutenberg-style press enabling industrial scale printing. But there was nothing digital about the printing press unless a careless pressman had a digit crushed by the press. (My brother was a pressman for an upstate New York newspaper.)
Modern Technology
Publishing of books, magazines and newspapers proliferated through the introduction of digital technology. Digital publishing was invented by Xerox at their Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) in the 1970s. Their first publishing system consisted of a desktop workstation (code named Alto) loaded with document creation software, with windows and a mouse. The Alto was connected by a Xerox local area network (Ethernet) to a group of workstations and to a black/white laser printer that serviced the group. A modern incarnation of the printing element is the DocuColor iGen150 that prints 26 inch wide full color pages at 150 pages per minute.
To get a sense of the digital power of this machine consider the real time bits per second that are processed. The laser with a resolution of 2400 dots/inch produces 2400x2400 = 5.76 million pixels (picture elements) per square inch. In a normal 8.5 x 11 square inch page the number of pixels is 8.5 x 11 x 5.76 million = 539 million. And that is for one color. For the four colors (cyan, magenta, yellow, black) the total number of pixels per color page is 4 x 539 = 2.15 billion. At the print speed of 150 pages per minute = 25 pages/sec the printer processes 25 x 2.15 billion = 54 billion pixels per sec. Since each pixel is either on or off the data rate is 54 billion bits/sec.
I was the manager of a Xerox research lab that developed much of the digital imaging technology for the iGen products. An example is “object-oriented rendering” that intelligently and automatically selects the appropriate halftone screen for a document with a mix of images and text, in real time at 150 pages per minute.
While the printing element made Billions for Xerox, it was the computer workstation element that changed the world. The Altos had a raster-scan display, like a TV, but the pixels were digital, either on or off. A chunk of Ram was devoted to the bitmap of the screen. The Alto hosted a graphical user interface (Smalltalk, with mouse control) that was a decade ahead of Microsoft Windows or the Apple Mac. There was a text editor (Bravo) that introduced “what-you-see-is-what-you-get word processing” ahead of MS Word. Most importantly, there was an easy to use email editor (Laurel) and the means (Ethernet) to communicate email and attachments among Alto users. It was the technology behind desktop publishing.
PARC scientist Alan Kay even mocked up a prototype of a tablet-like device in 1968. Kay called it the "Dynabook," saying, “We created a new kind of medium for boosting human thought, for amplifying human intellectual endeavor. We thought it could be as significant as Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press 500 years ago.” (Even with this substantial lead over future competitors Xerox still managed to bungle the opportunity. The sad story is told in a number of books including “Fumbling the Future: How Xerox Invented then Ignored the First Personal Computer.”)
Publishing Online
Twenty years later the Internet was up and running (thanks to Bob Kahn and Vinton Cerf) with content provided by the World Wide Web. (thank you Tim Berners-Lee). With the immense popularity of the Internet, the publishing industry began a transformation. Print magazines hosted some of their published material online. And some digital magazines (also called e-zines or webzines) that are hosted, distributed and read online, were born online.
Palos Verdes Pulse is an online magazine. That means Pulse has many of the characteristics of print magazines, but uses digital publishing technology so it can be viewed on an electronic device such as a computer, tablet, or mobile phone. You see one of the advantages of digital magazines in the last sentence. The hyperlink takes you to a Wiki article on digital publishing with just [Ctrl] + Click of your mouse.
It's amazing how inexpensive a publication can be if it doesn't need to pay for writing, editing, design, paper, ink, or postage. “Mega 'Zines,” Macworld (1995)
There are many advantages of digital publishing:
1. Online magazines have low production costs compared to printed magazines.
2. Online magazines are versatile. They can be read on tablets and mobile devices anywhere and anytime.
3. They are environmentally friendly; no need to cut down a tree.
4. And they can have a range of interactive features, including hyperlinks, videos, etc.
There are many software applications that are used to build an e-zine. Some have funny names like Joomag or Flipsnap. Others include Flippingbook, MagLoft and Lucidpress.
Digital Trends
Magazine publishing today is a $62 Billion market. However, that market has been declining at an annual rate of nearly 4% due primarily to the digital disruption. The New York Times digital revenue is expected to be $800M in 2020; the Times online is projected to reach 10M digital subscribers by 2025.
On the other hand, interest in local information gives smaller publishers like Palos Verdes Pulse a huge advantage – the possibility to know the interests of their readers and then tailor their product to those interests. This year, the Internet-enabled online publishing market will reach $8 Billion, and it is expected to grow to $13 Billion by 2022.
A major technical trend in online magazines of the future will be the use of consumer data to deliver targeted digital content. Facebook “likes” are a simple example. Artificial Intelligence will be the technical enabler.
Visual content is already king and will be king and queen in the future. In addition to dazzling pictures, online magazines will contain infographics, links and YouTube videos. Studies predict that by 2022 over 80% of online content will be video.
Mobile-friendly content will be the prince. The best online magazines will guarantee the comfort of reading every type of content with high quality on smartphones. Photos and videos will be adjusted to the screen size and will look great.
Talking magazines are another opportunity. Podcasts in particular are a growing medium. About a third of Americans listen to podcasts at least once a month. (I could narrate Digital Publishing Technology.)
Another trend will be search engine optimization (SEO) that helps the site attain a better Google ranking. https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo
No matter the year or the trends, one thing remains the same: “You. Need. Google. Period.” https://www.magloft.com/blog/8-online-magazine-publishing-secrets-need-know-new-year/
18 Best SEO Tools https://www.oberlo.com/blog/seo-tools
This free online guide https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo describes all major aspects of SEO, from finding the terms and phrases (keywords) that can generate traffic to your website, to making your site friendly to search engines, to building links and marketing the unique value of your site. “Very clearly you want to host compelling content that answers the searcher’s query and share-worthy content that earns links, citations, and amplification.”
Palos Verdes Pulse is an eclectic magazine covering art and architecture, design, lifestyle, visionaries (where you find my stuff) and wellness. Let’s try one topic. If you google lifestyle magazine, first up is a magazine called Lifestyle, then Martha Stewart Living, Shape, etc. If you google California lifestyle magazine up pops C-Magazine and SoCal Magazine. You have to google Palos Verdes lifestyle magazine to find Palos Verdes Pulse. As Pulse become more popular we like to think that lifestyle itself will be sufficient. Onward!
Dr. William Lama has a PhD in physics from the University of Rochester. Taught physics in college and worked at Xerox as a principle scientist and engineering manager. Upon retiring, joined the PVIC docents; served on the board of the RPV Council of Home Owners Associations; served as a PV Library trustee for eight years; served on the PV school district Measure M oversight committee; was president of the Malaga Cove Homeowner's Association. Writes about science, technology and politics, mostly for my friends.
email: wlama@outlook.com